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Reviews
Publisher's Weekly Review Jan. 2009
Former Reagan strategist Roberts
and journalist Elizabeth Roberts draw on unprecedented access to the Dalai Lama's circle and U.S. government insiders
to recount Tibet's resistance movement and its unlikely allies. Featuring recently declassified information, the book
reveals the extent to which the CIA was involved in the Dalai Lama's flight into exile in northern India and in arming
and training the Tibetan military resistance movement. During the cold war, the U.S. government regarded Tibet as another
front from which to fend off the threat of global communism and spent millions on military and propaganda operations the authors
term the “Himalayan Bay of Pigs.” After the Sino-Soviet split, the U.S. shifted its attention to the war in Vietnam
and the cause of Tibet's human rights was embraced by the U.S. counterculture and, later, academics and Hollywood celebrities.
The authors argue that Tibet's only hope lies in global economic divestment and boycotts against the Chinese government,
actions that were effective in urging the end of apartheid in South Africa. Despite its somewhat simplistic solutions, this
book offers a clear overview of the key issues and conveys why Tibet's situation is more urgent than ever. (Mar.)
KIRKUS REVIEWS Feb. 1, 2009
Heavily detailed history of the movement to liberate Tibet from
Chinese rule.
Since the People's Liberation Army invaded in 1950, and particularly since the Dalai Lama went into exile in 1959, the
Tibetan people's struggle for autonomy has attracted international attention. John B. Roberts, a former aide to President
Reagan, and his wife Elizabeth, a freelance journalist, combine archival research and interviews to chronicle that struggle,
which burst into the open in 1959 with a CIA-backed uprising that cost some 87,000 Tibetan lives. The authors are candid about
the CIA's covert funding of the movement, which came to an end when the Nixon administration concluded it might derail
attempts to forge closer diplomatic ties with China. They also discuss the Dalai Lama's remarkable life and his status
as a spiritual icon, which has prompted many governments, human-rights advocates and celebrities to speak against the Chinese
government's repressive policies. To date there has been little response, and the authors' frustration over this fact
is palpable. They toss plenty of advocacy into their hybrid combination of history of biography, taking a highly dramatic
tone: "The struggle is not between the Chinese people and the rest of the world. Nor is it between the Chinese people
and the Tibetan people, although Chinese government propagandists are more than willing to whip up nationalistic and ethnic
tensions to distract from the real issues. The fight is between freedom and dictatorship. For the Tibetan people to win their
struggle, the Chinese people will also have to find liberation." Those willing to ignore this sort of grandstanding will
find the authors' readable text a treasure trove of information about Tibet's ordeal. They close by suggesting that
foreigners supporting Tibetan freedom emulate the anti-apartheid movement by campaigning for trade sanctions and international
divestment to put economic pressure on China. A biased but informative take on an important aspect of Asian
political history.
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